How To Read A Bad Review: Advice For Authors And Buyers

If you put your creative work on the internet, there’s just no getting away from the fact that at some point, someone is going to give you a bad review. My first novella, Argleton, has been online for over nine months and the handful of reviews it has had have been relatively positive. But of course, that can’t last, and recently I’ve had a couple of one star reviews.

I’m pretty sanguine about it, but not everyonereacts so well to criticism. Particularly in self-publishing, there are some who can’t separate criticism of their work from criticism of themselves as a person, a feat that is essential if one is to remain calm.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

In my parallel life as a social technologist, I often find myself giving companies advice on how to react to negative comments on blogs, Twitter, or Facebook, and the same tactics are useful to both authors and buyers. Because when some random person on the internet comes along and lays into your creation there’s no need to blow your top or lapse into a depressed funk. If you know how to read bad reviews properly, you might even find some diamonds in that there muck.

1. Bleed the emotion out of the review

Oftentimes, when we react badly to criticism we’re reacting badly to the tone of the criticism rather than the content. “This author is a complete idiot whose inane overuse of commas makes their book an unreadable pile of cow poo” is a more emotive and provocative comment than “This book would have benefited from fewer commas”.

So ask yourself, what is the reviewer actually criticising? It can help to turn the review into a list of bullet points summarising the key issues in plain and emotionless language.

This first step is sometimes the only one that’s needed. If there are genuinely no substantive points made, if it’s just someone who didn’t like it and wants to vent in public, you can put that down to the fact that you really can’t please everyone and shouldn’t expect to.

2. Assess the substantive points

Once you understand the key issues raised (and remember, look only at your bullet points, not the original text), you can ask yourself whether you agree. To do this, you need to delve deep and be honest with yourself, because you learn nothing by simply dismissing complaints out of hand — they might be valid and you might gain something from accepting that.

In some cases, you won’t have enough information to come to a conclusion. “Your writing sucks” doesn’t actually tell you which bit of your writing the reader found sucky. But if they say your spelling is poor or your characterisation needs work, ask yourself honestly whether that might be the case.

3. Do the same points always come up?

If you have multiple bad reviews, look for common themes. Is your grammar often the target of criticism? Or your dialogue? Or your pacing? If you see similar points being raised by different people on different sites, then you probably do have a genuine problem that you need to address.

4. Consider the source

Always take a look at other reviews by the same person and consider whether they are likely to have a point or not. Some people simply enjoy being nasty online and will direct their venom in any random direction they please. If your reviewer only writes bad reviews, you can probably ignore them (unless, in your honest analysis, you think that maybe they do have a point).

Also look to see what sorts of things they have previously reviewed. Do they read and review a lot of books? Or is it mostly other stuff and your book just happened across their radar? If they don’t usually write book reviews, perhaps you just need to take the whole thing with a pinch of salt.

5. Don’t wallow

So you got a few bad reviews. Well done, you’ve arrived! Don’t let them cast you in to the depths of despair, make you angry, or stop you writing. Learn what you can from them and move on. Do not let yourself doubt your abilities. Remember: They are criticising your work, not you, (even if they sound as if they are).

Equally, don’t let the good ones go to your head either. To wilfully mangle Rudyard Kipling, if you can meet with good and bad reviews and treat those two impostors just the same, you’ll be a much happier author.

For readers

Readers, steps 1 − 4 are relevant for you. When you’re reading a review of a book you’re interested in, ask yourself:

What does the review actually say?

Is it sensible and substantive?

Do the same complaints keep cropping up?

Is the reviewer credible?

As a buyer, I always look at the bad reviews of whatever book or product I’m thinking of buying, but I never take the comments at face value. One fantastic 1 star review I saw recently complained that a plastic mattress protector sheet wasn’t good at keeping the reviewer dry when he used it as a bivouac on a particularly rainy night. Such a review is meaningless, it doesn’t tell me a thing about how well the sheet protects mattresses.

It’s the same with book reviews: If someone just rambles on about the author being an idiot, that doesn’t give you as a reader any useful information about whether the book is worth your time. Don't let a few one star reviews, particularly insubstantial ones (which likely say more about the reviewer than the book itself), stop you buying something you like the look of. If you can, read a sample and use your own judgement on whether it's your thing or not.

Should authors read reviews at all?

There are some who say authors shouldn’t read any reviews, good or bad, but that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, especially for early career authors. If you want to improve in your craft, you have to learn to take criticism and learn from it.

Bad reviews can be valuable, but it’s important not to get over-involved with them, and you certainly should never, ever respond to them. Readers will forgive a bad review, but they won't forgive bad behaviour by an author.